Wonderland
by Skiewrites
Summary: The corrupt wormhole had more unforeseeable repercussions than just sending the Paladins of Voltron to the corners of space. Each of them are faced with their own unique problems they must overcome as well as what it truly means to be a Paladin of Voltron (Saturdays updates)
1. Arc 1: Reaction - Pidge 1

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM AND SWEARING**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Pidge 1

* * *

Groaning, Katie Holt sat up and rubbed her face, pushing the sleep dust out of the corners of her eyes, feeling strangely energized after the all-nigher that she pulled.

Huh, what a surprising turn of events.

Slowly stretching her aching muscles, she started to get ready for the day, getting changed from her night clothes into the ugly orange uniform that the Garrison decided that they simply must have and put her hair into a high ponytail so that it followed the Garrison's regulations, letting her bangs fall into her face, frowning to herself as she could have sworn that she cut it all off-

Oh, wait, that was in her dream.

Her, surprisingly vivid and highly detailed, dream, where she piloted a mechanical lion from outer space with four other people (with their own lions, of course), and lived on a castle-ship thing with them and these two aliens, all of which were helping her find her brother and father, who were kidnapped by these other aliens during their journey to Kerberos, of which they were fighting an intergalactic war against, with the colour-coded (because what are we, animals?) mechanical flying lions that could become a bigger mechanical flying robot when combined that even had its own name: Voltron.

So, basically, Power Rangers in space mixed in with some Transformers shit.

Frowning slightly, she ran her hand through her long hair to remind herself that it was all still there as she entered the bathroom that was connected to her room, and brushed her teeth, staring into the mirror feeling as if there was something _off_ about her face, as if something was missing. Sighing when, after five minutes of staring at her face in the mirror, she gave up, deciding that she was not going to be comparing what she had been wearing in her dream to what her real life was.

 _Or maybe_ , she thought as she placed her tooth brush back into its cup, _this was all a dream and she'll wake up again in her lion and wonder about the ridiculous dream she had about having a normal life._

It was too fucking early to be dealing with this level of deep thinking. She'll leave that shit to Kogane, thank you very much.

Walking back into her room, Katie packed her bag for the day, filling it with the homework, textbooks, a notebook for her doodles and idle thoughts and the random project she'll finish during one of her easier classes. Just as she was leaving the room, she backtracked, entering her room again only to cross off a day on her calendar, a gift from a grandparent for Christmas last year.

April 3rd.

Happy birthday.

* * *

Life at the Garrison was something that Katie doubted that could be replicated anywhere in the world.

The way that they advertised it was that it was a military establishment, which want something that Katie was going to argue with. There were officers assigned here, and not only to teach, not that most of them wanted to be there, something that they made sure to remind the students on a daily basis.

So, yes, it was a military establishment, but it was also a school, though, the ages were varied, from 15, like herself, up to about 25, with all students learning more about space travel, training to be some of the only people of their time to leave their home planet and explore their solar system, and maybe even further with the leaps that technology was going. That being said, most of the students were 17-20 years old.

Meaning that, when Katie walked into her Communication's class to see a girl crying over a dead meme, two people loudly arguing over quidditch being a legitimate sport and having a spot in the next Olympics and somebody in the front row furiously scribbling over their piece of paper, they obviously hadn't done the homework, all she did was take her seat in the back of the class, not fazed in the slightest, and take out her notebook and began to let her pencil take over, doodling to her heart's content, ignoring when the teacher, an older man who thought that the best way to control the class was to be their friend and not their commanding officer, asked the class to settle down and to give in their homework.

Not that it worked, but at least a small gold star can be given for effort.

Sighing as she let her head hit the table, Katie bit back a large groan while continuing to doodle as the class went on to talk about the teacher's, whose name had completely slipped Katie's mind for some reason, private life to stop them from having to do much work.

She had decided to come to the Garrison because she wanted to be challenged, wanted to be pushed further than when she skipped grades at school, than when she had planned the most complex of pranks that caused her name to go down in school history the year that she left, more than when she decided that she was going to learn all the programming languages she could get her hands on and then make one that was 10 times better and more logical than the shit that everyone else was using.

She did not come here to listen to some bullshit about how the commander's (what was his name, it was on the tip of her tongue, she was sure of it) youngest child had just their fourth birthday. If she _really_ wanted to know, she'll just hack into the Garrison's systems and find out for herself; it wasn't like it was that hard.

Then the bell is going off, and there is a flurry of activity as everyone packs up their empty notebooks as they rush off to their next lessons, or, if they're lucky, a study period. Picking up her own notebook, she closed it, ignoring whatever her subconscious mind decided was a good thing to draw.

Written on the now hidden page, ingrained onto the page in her large messy bubble writing, was something she could only think of as a dream.

 _Voltron._

* * *

Katie had the weirdest feeling of being watched as she stood in line in the simulation room, vaguely listening to whatever Commander had been assigned to cover Iverson that day go on about good techniques that fliers should use when entering an atmosphere, stuff that didn't really relate to her in the first place anyway.

Just because she had read all the flight manuals doesn't mean that she'll get behind the controls of even a cargo ship anytime soon.

(She held her breath as she was overtaken by the feeling of déjà vu.)

(What's wrong?)

(Nothing's wrong.)

(Everything's right.)

"Hey Holt."

Turning her head, Katie looked at Keith Kogane, an amazing pilot in the making and the leader of their group for the simulations, practically born to be better than anything that the Garrison can train, even Tadashi Shirogane.

(No, something was very wrong.)

(No, everything was okay.)

"So, it turns out that Hathaway has skivoliosis, for the third time this semester. So, for the third time this semester, we're not going to be going into the sim." Kogane muttered under his breath with enough anger that made Katie wince, making sure that neither the commander nor the others lines up with them could make out what he said as they watched the first group go into the simulator. She sighed in response, feeling oddly happy that she wasn't going to be in the sims today.

Joshua Hathaway was the mechanic and the last member of their team, when he could be bothered to be around. When he was, he did not stop with the sexist comments, racist jokes, and crude humour as well as flirt with anything that has two legs and has something that resembles boobs. But, he was smart when it mattered, in the fact that he could fix anything to a decent standard in an emergency, which is all the Garrison really cared about. It wasn't them that had to put up with his behaviour after all.

No, it was her and Keith that had to deal with it.

"Jackass is lucky that he's not here then." She replied, keeping her eyes on the screen as the class watch the group inside fail tremendously at entering Mars' atmosphere, as they ended up crashing, not only onto the planet, but onto one of the research bases.

The look on their faces showed that they knew that they were in for a walloping.

Katie did not pity them one bit.

So, instead of watching the team be dragged below their graves and into the depths of hell, Katie slyly glanced at her classmates, making sure to take a mental note of the ones who were smiling cockily at the team for their mistakes, the ones who were shaking in their Garrison grade boots in fear that they will be the next victim of the nameless commander.

Her eyes glided past Lance McClain, only to be drawn back to him.

She could have sworn he was in the cargo pilot class.

Keith hadn't dropped out yet, or ever.

Next to the Latino was Hunk, who never seemed to have changed and he looked like he feared for his life, not that Katie blamed him because he always crashed the simulators (or did he, should couldn't remember), and behind the pair of them was a clock, with no ticking hand, reading 13:67.

Was she dreaming.

She could have sworn that she woke up this morning.

Pinching herself, she frowned at the weird tingly sensation it created, instead of the sharp pain that she had been expecting.

"I didn't take you to be a self-harmer." Kogane muttered, looking straight down at her.

"I'm not." Katie muttered back, staring at Lance, Hunk, and tall girl as they entered the simulator.

"What time is it?" Her pilot looked puzzled by question, but, nevertheless, he turned around to look above where Lance had just been standing.

"Just gone 12. Are you hungry for lunch for something?"

"Yeah. Something like that."

* * *

 **A.N. SO HERE'S THE FIRST CHAPTER, WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK? NEXT WEEK IS KEITH, SO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THAT.**

 **SEE YA!**


	2. Arc 1: Reaction - Keith 1

**TRIGGER WARNING: CHARACTER DEATHS**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Keith 1

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering what horrifying event in his dream had made him have such a violent awakening.

It was, surprisingly, vivid - terrifyingly so, to the point that he wasn't sure if it was a dream or not. Even now, Keith could make out small, minute details like the way that the weird space goo tasted and the heat of battle from an explosion caused by his ship, his Red Lion, and the way that Shiro-

No. It was a dream, it had to be, because Shiro was...

Shiro is...

Shiro...

Climbing to his feet, Keith dumped his blanket back on his bed, not caring to make it, and made his way towards what was supposed to be a kitchenette, but was basically a bunch of cupboards with rusty handles and even rustier hinges, surrounding a broken stove, a leaky fridge and a temperamental sink with anger issues, for it was fussy on which days water was allowed to travel out of the tap and had a drainage problem more often than not, to the point where Keith just couldn't be bothered to fix it anymore, and god-forbid he use the hot tap, unless he wants to be hit the face with water. He opened a cupboard door, the one with the least rust on the handle but made the most noise to open, only to be disappointed to see emptiness staring back at him.

So he slammed the door, ignoring the moans and groans from the hinges and the wood on wood thump of the door hitting the sides of the cupboard and moved on to the one next to it, ignoring the bottom cupboards where mould had already began to move in. Maybe be should start making it pay rent, then he wouldn't have to be so reliant on the stolen rations from the occasional Garrison supply truck that went past or the soup from the town three miles away.

Taking a bar out of the slowly dwindling pile (five left - better get some more soon), Keith walked into a room containing a broken couch, a cracked table and a bookshelf, all being overcast with the bright sunlight coming through the gritty windows.

Resigned, Keith flopped onto the couch, breathed in deeply and sighed loudly.

Home sweet home.

He had moved in here about three months ago, after the last school year had finished, after he was kicked out of the Garrison due to 'disciplinary issues', after Shiro...

It's been four months since the it was announced to the public that the Kerberos mission had failed, failed due to pilot error. It had been four months since Shiro had...

Shiro had...

It's been four months, but he still couldn't admit it. It just doesn't seem real, the believe that he was...

But yet, that dream, where everything seemed possible and life-threatening, had made him feel more alive than he had felt in what seemed to be forever, which should be impossible because none of that could have been possible. Sentient robotic lions? Princess of an extinct race with her royal adviser? That cute but really annoying blue pilot? Shiro!? None of it can be possible, is even possible. He shouldn't let the dream get to him, it wasn't real?

Was it?

Fuck it, he needed to go on a run, work out, anything to clear his head of the stupid thoughts and questions that the dream presented.

Back up to his room to change, not bothering to wash because he was going to sweat a lot from and it wasn't like anyone who was going to see him anyway.

Back down the stairs, into the hallway and almost out the front door until the small calender nailed to the wall caught his eye, and he was overcome with the strange sensation of deja vu, with the nagging thought tumbling all over his brain, telling him that 'he had done this before'. It was creepy and unnerving, giving him the impression that it was something to do with that stupid bloody dream he had the night before.

The calender itself was nothing too remarkable, something that Shiro had gotten him that Christmas and one of the only things he had yet to throw away from his time at the Garrison. On it were days that had been marked off, days starred and with notes of the next Garrison ration delivery and the best time to take it. Every night Keith would mark off a day, showing that time did move in the desert, showing it was a day more since Shiro...

But the day was October 23rd. How did he miss that?

Not that it really mattered, after all, there wasn't anyone here to celebrate his birthday with him.

Time for that work out.

* * *

He had been quick to forget that dream.

The days in the desert were long and the night's longer, with only training, working on his bike and stealing to keep him occupied. The days turned into weeks and weeks into months and suddenly it was February.

It would actually be Shiro's birthday this year.

He spent the day on his bike, traveling across the desert in hopes of forgetting what day it was, crouching low to keep the sand from going in his eyes and wearing a bandana over his mouth so he could breathe without dust particles ripping this throat apart.

He was about to break his time record (he thinks) before he had the strange feeling of being watched.

It couldn't be the Garrison, for as angry as they were for the missing food portions, he doubted they would come this out in the desert, where it was closer to his shack than it was the main building. There were no roads out here either, so lost pedestrian or some crook hoping to steal his bike. There was nothing here, except the cave opening around the corner-

Was there someone in the cave?

Hiding his bike, Keith took out a torch, turned it on and directed the light into the opening. Taking a step though, he was hit with another wave of deja vu, which was impossible, because he had never been here before. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He was being watched.

Quickly turning, Keith shined the light on one of the walls, only to see carvings of lions and a big robot-

Voltron.

His breath sped up. This was impossible. That dream, it was only a dream, right? That one dream that he had months ago, about Shiro and robotic lions and weird alien princesses, it was all impossible-

Yet here were the carvings, these stupid carvings that lead to the Blue Lion...

How did they find the lions last time?

* * *

Four months.

That's how long he had to wait until Shiro escaped. Until then he had to wait.

He didn't realise how lonely the shack was until he started to miss what he used to have - or was going to have.

He spent his time training and getting ready.

He was going to be prepared this time.

He had forgotten how badly Lance flew, but that was okay, because everyone was here.

Sure they were all screaming at the top of their lungs because Lance really was theworstflier there ever was, but it had been eight months since he had seen them.

(He had missed them.)

(He was never going to admit that fact ever in his life, because one, Lance would never let him live it down, after getting the fact that, yes, Keith too did have feelings, and two, they weren'thisfriends, not yet, because this Hunk still has motion sickness, this Pidge is still believed to be a boy, this Shiro is still unsure and this Lance is still annoying-

Lance never changes.)

Keith smiles as they go through the portal, the one that everyone but him and Blue have doubts going through, and he sighs deeply at the sight of the castle when they first land, and he looks at all the nooks and crannies as they walk though the corridors towards the cyropods where Allura and Coran have slept for 10,000 years.

Keith doesn't know when he first started this castle home, but he does know that he is so glad to be back after all those months.

He hangs back when the others go and get their Lions, mainly because Red was on a Galra warship that was circulating the planet, leaving him to watch the Alteans go through the castle and basically dust everything off. But, unlike last time, when he crossed his arms and stared at the wall until the other came back, he smiled at Allura, and asked random, silly questions for Coran to answer, ones where Keith already knew the answer.

To them, it had only been a moment since the destruction of their planet

To him, it had been eight long months since he fought Zarkon to free Allura.

That was okay though, since he was here now, surrounded by his friends, on the way to getting his Lion and freeing the galaxy of Zarkon's influence.

It was going to be okay.

* * *

Things were not going okay.

Like before, Shiro and Pidge went one way to get the prisoners to look for someone that Keith knew wouldn't be there, while he went another way, by himself, to collect Red.

It went just like before, eerily so, not that that should surprise him in anyway shape or form. He hasn't done anything that should change the future yet, at least, he doesn't think he has.

He shouldn't have, and he doesn't think he wants to. Everything turns out fine, in the end. But, now that Keith thinks about it more carefully, some events, like Blue taken from them by Rolo, could be avoided, and the corruption of the crystal should be stopped before it started.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

Before Keith could start planing for either event, he came to the hanger in which Red was being held. Surrounded by the bright blue particle barrier, she looked as magnificent as ever, her coat of red paint reflecting the purple light of the ship and her amour looking better than he last saw her, which left him with the daunting realisation:

This isn't the same Red.

He could feel her quintessence flow over his, judging him. She could feel that he had a connection with her, a different her, a Red that had help him fly into battle against Zarkon himself, but this wasn't her, this was the Red that he first met over eight months ago, when they met for the first time, on this ship.

Keith was getting the through that she still wasn't impressed.

The sudden sounds of plazma guns brought Keith out of his mental stump and turned his attention on the Galra Sentries that have invade the hanger.

He almost forgot that this happened.

Projecting his shield and summoning his bayard, Keith looked around, thinking about what he could do next. Last time, he activated the airlock and got projected into space, along with all the robots and Red.

He didn't want to do it again, but scanning across the room, he couldn't see anything else that he could use.

He also doesn't see the plasma beam come towards him and hit him the backside of the head.

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering where the fuck the headache had come from.

Then he remembered the dream, and the dream in the dream that actually wasn't a dream because time travel was totally a thing now.

He was so, unbelievably, fucked.

* * *

 **A.N. SO HERE'S THE NEXT CHAPTER, AND SOME OF YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY READ IT DUE TO THE STORY THAT I HAVE ALREADY UPLOADED. TO THINK, THIS WAS THE ONE THAT SET IT ALL OFF TOO! NEXT WEEK IS SHIRO, SO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THAT. ALSO, I HAVE BEEN THINKING OF WRITING SOME ONE SHOTS FOR THIS SERIES, SO IF ANY OF YOU HAVE ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT SEEN, THEN JUST MENTION IT IN THE COMMENTS OR ON MY TUMBLR (LOOK FOR SKIEWRITES)**


	3. Arc 1: Reaction - Shiro 1

**NO TRIGGER WARNINGS**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Shiro 1

* * *

When Shiro open his eyes, he had thought he had crashed, at least, for a few seconds.

He wouldn't say he was the most experienced with crashes, having been one of the better pilots that the Garrison had seen. They wouldn't send a person who would most likely crash their expensive and flashy space shuttle into the face of a moon that they hadn't properly explored yet.

That being said, he did crash that Galra escape pod onto Earth, and right next to the Galaxy Garrison, and right next to their training grounds, which was pretty unfortunate to say the least, as he didn't get the most welcoming coming home party in the universe. But, he also didn't crash into the sea or a country that didn't speak English, Italian or Japanese, both of which have a pretty high chance of happening, so there were always the positives to look at, at least.

That did happen to be his one and only crash though.

Thus, he didn't have the most experienced when it came to crashes, not according to the stories about Lance's time at the Garrison, so he was glad that he didn't crash.

He still didn't know where he was.

He was surrounded by the depths of space, making him feel as if he was floating, but he was pretty sure that his feet were on the floor, supporting his weight. Around him were the stars that he wanted to visit since he was a child, practically begging him to come closer, to come visit and say hi.

This was the reason why he wanted to go to space.

It wasn't the pay, though he doubted that he would get enough that would compensate for the situation he now found himself in. It wasn't for the fame, not the glory, he saw little point in that. He didn't get the same thrill that Keith did from flying, and he didn't really care for finding aliens in space – though it seemed that they found him instead.

No, it was for the chance to fly with the stars.

To infinity and beyond.

He could stand there all day staring at the stars in front of him, something he would do at night back on Earth, from when he was a child with his Otosan* in the small balcony in Tokyo with a new space book, to sitting on top of the Garrison's main building with Keith when neither of them could sleep due to the anticipation of the mission. There were the bright reds that shone with passion, the calm yellows that emits small smiles, brilliant blues that lull his soul and vibrant greens that hid the answers to the universe that he, that all of them, desperately needed and sort for.

Maybe they can tell him where he was?

It wasn't space, he would be dead by now, as his helmet was missing, though he was in his armour. However, he didn't think he was in the afterlife, something about it make it seem that that couldn't be the right answer.

Unless he was in denial.

He hoped not.

This is why people shouldn't go into unstable wormholes. Anything could happen, and that was never a good thing.

He couldn't be dead, right?

What about the others? Were they okay? did they make it through the wormhole okay? Were they safe?

Were they alive?

Shiro's mind was racing, with more questions filling his mind every second. He could feel his breath being to pick up, becoming faster and shallower – panicking, he was panicking. He needed to stop panicking, but the others were in trouble and he was stuck here, in the middle of nowhere (everywhere?), where couldn't help them.

How was he supposed to be a good leader when he didn't even know where he was?

It wasn't until a deep purr filled his mind that he opened his eyes again (when did he close them?), his breaths becoming less shallow with every intake.

The Black Lion.

Turning around, Shiro squinted his eyes to look for signs of the Black Lion, but he was met with a blank when he didn't see her.

Where was she?

Stumbling forward, Shiro began to start walking. He didn't know where he was going, it wasn't like he had a map of the place, nor did he think he had ever visited this weird warped version of outer space.

Just following the pull of the Black Lion, seeing if that got him anywhere.

Is this what the others felt as they searched for their Lions?

* * *

Left.

Left.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Shiro wondered how long he had been walking for.

He knew it had been a while since he started to follow the bond between himself and the Black Lion, but how long was that? A minute? A day? It was hard to tell when the only thing he could see was the stars, twinkling as bright as they were.

He was already set into the rhythm of walking, the way that one foot fell in front of the other reminded him of matching at the Garrison, of how everything was set in time with one another.

Left.

Left.

Left.

Right.

Left.

It was almost therapeutic, in a way. Maybe it was the repetitive routine, or maybe it was the simple reminder of what he used to have back on Earth, back before any of this started.

Maybe it was the feeling that he was something, even if he was just walking into the abyss.

Maybe it will say hi.

(Shiro hoped it would.)

(Matt would totally laugh at him for the situation that he was in.)

(Shiro really missed him.)

(Shiro hoped Matt was okay.)

Left.

Left.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Where was Black?

Why was she so far away?

* * *

Shiro stopped.

He didn't know how long he had been walking, but he knew that it had been way too long. He should be tired by now, he hadn't slept since before the failed mission, and even then, he wouldn't even call it sleep, barely getting four hours before nightmares infected his dreamless rest was not sleep.

He should he hungry, thirsty, having achy muscles, feeling cramps and stiches with the speed that he had been walking at.

But no, he was stood in the middle of space, still, and seemingly no closer to the Black Lion than he probably was before.

Even the stars hadn't moved.

What was he thinking? The stars didn't move!

This was getting ridiculous.

What was he going to do?

Going forward obviously wasn't to do anything, it wasn't even making him tired. Standing still, or sitting down, wouldn't do anything for the situation, the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of making mistake.

He didn't have anything on him, no Bayard like the others, no knife or crazy accurate instincts like Keith, no technology on hand or speed like Pidge, no positive thinking and the photographic memory from Hunk, no out-of-the-box thinking and attention to small details like Lance.

Shiro was lucky to have such a brilliant and talented team, and he was certain that, if any of his teammates were here right now, they'd know what to do.

They'd manage to get themselves out of anything. It was Keith that first found the Blue Lion, that found him and led the others to the small shack in the middle of the desert. It was Lance that not only helped them get away from Earth, but noticed that the bot was a bomb in the nick of time. Hunk not only stepped up when the Bulmerians needed them the most, but made sure that the team was high in moral. Pidge was the one that helped to take back the castle, the one to hack into multiple databases to get the information that they needed.

All he did was bring them all together, leading them as the head of Voltron.

So now he was at a crossroad, where lots of the paths that he thought he could have gone down were now out of the question.

He couldn't go forward, there was nothing ahead for him.

He couldn't stay here, not when there was something he could do.

There was nothing to fight, no obvious problem to solve to get out of here, no door that held a flashing sign 'THE EXIT IS RIGHT THROUGH HERE :]'.

He really needed one of those doors one of these days.

Maybe he should go back, and check if he didn't already pass the door, but had just been too zoned out to noticed.

Sighing, the Black Paladin of Voltron turned around to face the direction he had just come from, but instead of taking a step like he had planned, his eyes only widened in shock as a single word left his lips in a whispered breath.

"Black."

* * *

 **A.N. Here's Shiro, at about three O'clock in the morning (GMT) because sleep is for the weak. Hunk is next week, so keep an eye out for that. Remember how I mentioned about having some one shots, well, I now have nine planned, so now this story is going to be about 70 chapters long for the first phase.**

 **Night!**

 ***Otosan – Father**

 **With the left right thing, that's what we say in drill to keep in time, and I think drill is totally up Shiro's alley.**


	4. Arc 1: Reaction - Hunk 1

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: PANIC ATTACKS**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Hunk 1

* * *

When Hunk opened his eyes after finally escaping the corrupted wormhole, he was suddenly glad that, out of everything that could scare him in the universe, the dark wasn't one of them.

There was the faint smell of smoke in the air, already telling him that some of the circuits had fried during the fight against Zarkon's Central Command and there was the small bitter taste of blood from where he had bit his cheeks in frustration during the fight. There was no sound to be heard, not even the low hum of the machinery, or a soft purr of the Yellow Lion, quietly supporting him all the way, something he had grown used to in the last couple of months of being the Paladin of the Yellow Lion.

Worst of all, the cockpit was void of any light, leaving only his armour to fill in, causing the small room to be filled with a baby blue light that barely did anything to show him the state of the control board in front of him. Beyond the glass between Hunk and space was nothing but what he assumed to be deep space, where not even the brightest of stars could reach him.

This was Bad.

"Guys? Can you hear me?" He asked aloud, feeling his stomach drop to the cold depths of hell when, after a few doboshes, there was no reply, not even the static that was affecting their comms during the fight could be heard, leaving nothing but a deafening silence in his wake.

"Lance?"

Okay.

"Pidge?"

Don't panic.

"Shiro?"

(They didn't teach this in the Garrison.)

"Keith?"

(Is now a good time to panic?)

"Coran?! Allura?! Guys! Can you hear me?"

(He really wants to panic now.)

Hunk made sure to take a slow and deep breath as he sat up in the pilot chair, stretching his aching muscles and his shanking limbs, trying his very hardest to keep the panic from building up in his chest (not that it was working out for him very well).

Damn, he must have been out for a while.

Reaching over to squint at the controls in the low light, he began to press buttons, flick switches, turn nozzles, trying to see how much damage the Yellow Lion had come under, only to get more and more confused and frantic when nothing happened.

No light flashed in response, no screen popped up, no purr of his Lion to tell him everything was going to be okay.

He was no pilot by any means, not a properly trained one at least nor was it his first choice for a career path, but he was a mechanic. He knew that all these buttons should have done something, even if he didn't know what that something was. There was no drone from Yellow, no reassuring hum like normal, not even any red flashing lights, or any lights really, to show that something was broken, making it seem as if there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

That was what tipped off the alarm bells in his head.

"Hey girl, now isn't really the best time for napping, so if you could, I don't know, wake up, for at least a minute, or a dobosh or whatever you want to call them, and tell me that everything's a-okay, then that would be great."

No response.

(He wasn't expecting one.)

He pushed a lever forward, only for him to realise that it was locked into place, meaning that, without his lion being online, he would not be going anywhere.

(Was now a good time to panic?)

He could feel his breaths become shallower, taking in less oxygen each time. Hunk placed his shaking hands onto his knees, trying his hardest to take deep breaths as he silently counted each gasp of air, just like his Mamá taught him for when he got like this, and looked at the floor of the cockpit, observing at all the imperfections that the metal beneath him held, his breathing stopping every time he watched a tear fall from his face to join others in a puddle on the floor that reflected the blue light like a small pond while his ears twitched, looking for a sound that wasn't his forced breathing and the racing blood behind his ear drums in the silence of space.

Now wasn't the time to panic.

(His reaction to stressful situations hadn't gotten any better since when he first left Earth.)

(But hey, at least he had _finally_ gotten over his motion sickness.)

Without being able to use Yellow, or even having access to a proper computer, Hunk was unsure of how long he spent in that position, counting the intakes, holds and releases of air into the small dark room of the room. It could have been a dobosh, it could have been several varga, but he doubted he'll ever know how long he spent in the dark trying to calm himself down.

Where was Lance when you needed him? Hunk would give anything right now just to listen to his voice, going on about the small things in the universe that nobody really cared about, like how the food goo was probably better off as a product for his hair than something to solve his hunger, or how much Iverson's going to moan about the homework that they never got to hand in when they got back to Earth (not if, because Lance didn't want to think of the other options, none of them did), because they all knew that he wouldn't take the whole ' _we ran away from our home planet to save the universe so we didn't have time to complete the essay on the rules regulations of flying in the battle graded spaceships you gave us_ ' excuse or how Keith's mullet was a crime against the universe.

Lance always knew what to say when he felt anxious. Lance knew what calmed him down, he knew how to talk in the right tone that made him feel right at home and feel safe, no matter what subject he was talking about. It made the words wash right over him, and while Hunk regretted the fact that he could never seem to concentrate on what the actual words are, he still got the meaning of them.

" _It's okay. You're okay."_

(He was not okay.)

" _You're in a safe place."_

(Was this part of space within the Galra Empire. Did they know that he was here?)

" _You have all the time in the world to ride this panic attack."_

(He didn't have the time for this. He needed to get out of here.)

" _Things are going to turn out just fine. Just you wait."_

(He didn't have the time for such an optimistic view.)

But Lance wasn't here to tell him those things, nor were the rest of the team. He was alone, stuck in the middle of deep space, in a broken sentient ship that didn't even have any lights on.

Hunk breathed in another shuddering breathe, and made sure to breath it out slowly.

He could do this, just one step at a time.

One really slow step if it came to it.

Standing up, Hunk put his hand against the edge of the control panel, and began to walk on his jelly legs as he felt around, seeing where everything was, his hand drifting over his Bayard, stuck in its port from where he had let it while going through the wormhole. Slowly, his hand moved on, guiding him around the Yellow Lion's cockpit, the low light reflecting off the polished metal, giving the small room an eerie blue glow that reminded him too much of Alfor's 'ghost'. He made his footsteps quiet as his hand began to brush against the cold surface of the door, as if something bad would happen if he were to break the silence.

Hunk's fingers jumped the small ditch that the door met at, and the thought of opening the door left his agitated mind as soon as it entered. The doors were powered by the Lion, and while Hunk was sure there was a reason as to why they were like that and that there was a way to open them without power (then again, with the ziplines to the Lion's hangers in mind, Alteans didn't seem to be the most practical of species…), it still left him in the cockpit.

All alone.

In the dark.

With no supplies, it seems.

Hunk almost collapsed into the pilot's chair by the time he had made a full lap in the dark room, his whole body exhausted from, not only the physical fight against Zarkon and his main forces, but also from the mental strains that seemed to come along with being what could be billions of light years away from the others, away from help, away from light.

His body begged for rest, and Hunk couldn't help but to give in to it's simple demands, closing his eyes and letting his thoughts wonder, hoping from the bottom of his heart that, somehow, his team was close by to help him from the situation he had found himself in.

He's last thought before nodding off in the dark room, void of any sound other than his own breathing, was the small burning hope that they weren't in too much trouble.

* * *

 **A.N. So guess who almost forgot to update the story, and is now giving in a late chapter. Yes, that would be me.**

 **No worries, however, as I am currently on track with everything (ish), and I should have a Shiro 2 prepared by next week, but, if not, then I'm afraid you're gonna get a Hunk 2 instead. It depends on what I have written by the time next week comes round.**

 **Other than that, Merry Christmas!**


	5. Arc 1: Reaction - Shiro 2

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF DEATH/HELL**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Shiro 2

* * *

Shiro let out a breath he didn't know he was holding at the sight of the Black Lion, _his Lion,_ standing tall and proud in front of him with the backdrop of colourful, twinkling stars.

No matter how many times he piloted her, he doubted he would ever get over her beauty, as it was as if she was absorbing all the light from the stars behind her and somehow became brighter than all of them, despite the wearing black paint that somehow sparkled without a direct light source. She was standing in the same way that he first saw her, at attention, waiting for someone to approach and give her a challenge, giving off an air that told the challenger that she would win, no matter what she threw at her.

Out of everything about his Lion, Shiro reckoned that it was her pure stubbornness to never give up that he liked the most about her.

(Most of the time. Sometimes it got in the way of the mission, and it was hard to change her mind about something, but they worked through it.)

(They always have up until this point.)

Walking closer to the mechanical beast, his eyes swept over every scratch of her paint that showed the dull metal beneath, over the small dents and burn marks that she had gained over their battles. Not all of them from them from the last couple of months fighting against the Galra, no, most of them were from before his time as her Paladin. Despite the scratches and burns and dents from her original Paladin, whoever they may have been, it was obvious that she had been well cared for by them, if the multiple coats of paint and the well-oiled gears up until they died (or disappeared, the Alteans weren't really clear as to what happened to them) gave any indication.

When Shiro had walked close enough to be less than an arm's length away from the Black Lion, he slowly stretched his arm out, feeling like one of those kids at a museum who don't listen to the sign and touch the item anyway, but pause when his flesh was less than an inch away from her.

Something was wrong.

It hit him like a lightning bolt, and now Shiro was in close vacancy to the Black Lion, he could feel it roll off her like a heartbeat, steady and strong, as if the feeling that was coming out of her was the same thing that was keeping her alive. Frowning, he pulled his arm close to his side, clenching his fists as he gritted his teeth. It was only when he looked up at the Lion's face that Shiro noticed her dull eyes and the missing blue lights that usually sat on the side of her face.

"Is everything okay, Black?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them, internally cringing at the tone of his voice and how weird and pathetic it sounded, like he was home alone with a baby or something. He never felt entirely comfortable with talking aloud with his lion, not in the same way that Lance, Hunk or even Pidge were able to hold a seemingly one-sided conversation without it seeming awkward.

(Shiro had never seen or heard Keith have a conversation with the Red Lion, and it made wonder if he felt as awkward as he did. But, the again, Keith sometimes couldn't even hold a conversation with another person, let alone a sentient mechanical lion, not with spoken words at least. Maybe they communicated differently?)

There was no response from the Black Lion, not that Shiro expected one anyway. The others never seemed fazed by the constant lack of response from their Lions, ready to continue with what they were saying. While Shiro, who was stuck in a place that didn't seem to physically exist with seemingly nobody else, was too awkward to hold a one-sided conversation, even when there was no one to walk in on him.

(Okay, now it just sounds like his trying to do something either illegal or sexual.)

(This is not the kind of example he wants to the others to look up to.)

(Ugh, why is this so hard?!)

"So, um, I take it that something's wrong then." Shiro replied, tripping over his words slightly as he felt blood heat up his face in a light blush.

He survived fighting to the death in the arena for the entertainment of a blood thirsty race, protect and lead four teens in a war against an empire with only two aliens as their allies, some well-earned PTSD and use a glowing prosthetic arm as a weapon as well as a key to hack into some technology.

But god forbid that he able to comfortably talk to what is currently an inanimate object.

And, of course, there is no response from the Black Lion.

"Could you open up, please?" Shiro smiled awkwardly at the Lion, only for it to fall when there was again no response. Taking a step back, he looked up at his Lion's face, the way that her dull eyes were now staring at nothing, but seemingly everything at the same time, reminding him of the Blue Lion before Lance activated her, except, this time round, there was no protective particle barrier stopping him from approaching the Lion anyway.

Now that he thought about it, though, has she ever used her particle barrier in the time that he has seen her? Even when he first saw her, she had her barrier's down, and had just been locked in the hangers, which didn't sound as protected as a particle barrier (even when you needed all four of the Lions to unlock the door).

(He should probably ask Allura about that.)

So, by the looks of it, she's offline, for some unknown reason, as, from what Shiro had gathered, they hadn't crashed at all.

Or maybe they had crashed, and they were both dead?

No, that wasn't right, they couldn't have crashed, or, he couldn't be dead as the Black Lion was here and he was about 84% sure that the Lion didn't have a soul, despite it being sentient, meaning that he couldn't be in Hell (or Heaven of he was really lucky and God decided to ignore everyone he killed in the arena).

Or he was in Hell and this was his torture.

(His stomach felt heavy with that thought.)

" _Okay, this isn't funny anymore Black. Where's Shiro?"_

Turning his head to the side, Shiro's eyes widened as he stared at the figure to the side of the Black Lion, his lungs beginning to gasp for air as he made eye contact with the other person, but getting the strange impression that the other person's gaze went straight through him and his soul and was looking into the depths of space that laid behind him.

"Hunk?" Shiro breathed, his limbs almost shaking with anticipation as he slowly walked towards the Yellow Paladin, who held a look of confusion and frustration on his face.

This couldn't be Hell, as there was no way that sweet innocent Hunk would be even allowed to enter if he died, as he doubted that he did anything that wasn't forgivable by Him.

So, where was he then?

It didn't take Shiro very long to stop in front of his fellow Paladin, standing close enough that he should have seen Hunk smile at his presence, and loudly exclaim about how glad he was to see him right now.

He didn't get any of that, not even a look of recognition, but a stare that stabbed straight through his head and went on to the stars in the distance.

It hurt, knowing that he was invisible to the Yellow Paladin, but not the Black Lion, who didn't even respond to him.

" _Shiro? Where are you, bro?"_

At the same time, Shiro tried to place his shaky human hand on Hunk's shoulder, to show him that he was there, even if he was unseen, only for it to fall through the air as if swiping an illusion away, clearing the air of the fake and making the real visible, leaving him in space with only an offline ship and thousands of twinkling stars of all the colours of the window.

He sighed as he turned to look back at the dull eyes of the Black Lion, lifelessly reflecting the stars around them.

Shiro had never felt so alone.

* * *

 **A.N. So guess who's not only kinda late this week, and is behind in their coursework but has a good plan of what my updating schedule will look like for the next year. That's right. It's me. The scheduling for this fic will not be changing in the new year, just expect a chapter every Saturday unless I say so. Next week, Lance! Now, just to write it...**

 **Happy New Year!**


	6. Arc 1: Reaction - Keith 2

**TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF DEATH, SHORT AND REALLY BAD CHAPTER**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Keith 2

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering what the fuck he should do next.

It takes him a few doboshes before he decides that, next, he should make a mental list of all that's happened so far in this messed up timeline:

1) He went through a corrupted wormhole, and now is stuck living the same thing over and over, and dying and over and over.

2) He's died four times now, not including the wormhole thing that sent him back in time in the first place, because he didn't really die -unless he did and this was the afterlife.

(If that was true, then the afterlife was shit.)

3) This part of the mental list was split into four, one for each death so far:

.A) Death #1 was the Galra shooting him while getting Red.

.B) Death #2 was the Garrison shooting him, because he didn't plant enough bombs, or he didn't put them in the right place, or that he wasn't careful enough, he wasn't sure yet.

.C) Death #3 was bombs, for he was a bit trigger happy that time and managed to set them off months early.

.D) Death #4 was completely pathetic, but he was going though the caves, tripped in a puddle, hit his head, and the last thing he remembered was him blacking out, meaning that he died. Again.

4) He was now lying on the wooden floor boards with a headache, again, wondering what he should do next, something that would not get him killed. Again.

Keith rolled over into his back, and stared at the cracked ceiling. He was so glad that Lance, nor Pidge now that he thought about it, were there to see him die due to tripping over a puddle. A fricking puddle!

How bloody pathetic was that!

Standing up and stretching, Keith left his room for the kitchen, opening the single cupboard that contained food - he was going to need to steal from the Garrison truck, again - and left the hut without even glancing at the

Not that he needed to. He already knew what day it was, for it was always his birthday when he woke up after dying.

Was he ever going to be 18? After thinking long and hard (for the total time of about six minutes - the amount of time it takes to stretch before training) Keith had decided that he needed a way to track the ways that he fucked up, and the reasons as to why he he fucked up, so he wouldn't do it again. It was bad enough that he was stuck the time loop with no known way of escaping it, there was no way that he was going to accept dying the same death over and over laying down.

There was no way that he could die by tripping over a puddle, of all thing, ever again.

His pride took too much of a fall the first time round.

* * *

He ended up stealing a leather notebook from the town's only arts and crafts store, a small run down corner shop with no security that lived on the edge of the dusty town. It was owned by an enthusiastic, but almost blind, man who was in his late 60s. It made Keith almost feel bad for robbing the guy with how pathetically easy it was to steal under the old man's nose. Almost.

He was pretty sure he needed the notebook more than the person who brought it in the first place, assuming that it was brought.

* * *

When he get back to the dusty shack in the middle of the desert (not home, this could never be called his home), the first thing he does is fill the stolen notebook out.

First he writes all the ways he had died, as well as why he thinks he had died.

(Some events like the Garrison he will never know but some like his previous death was so pathetically stupid he wishes that he doesn't needed to write this down)

After that he writes two lists. One of them is a list of things he should do, and the other is a list of things that he shouldn't do.

On the 'DO' list are things like 'not die', 'make bombs without dying', 'rescue Shiro without dying' and 'workout' (by this point he couldn't be bothered to keep writing the phrase 'without dying', as it was beginning to hurt his hand, but every time he read the list, there was an unspoken rule he had made with himself that it was there anyway). But compared to the 'DO NOT DO'list, it was comparatively short, mainly due to the fact that every two or three lines he would add the word 'die' in capital letters and made sure to make it bolder than the last, reminding himself that he dying was not on his other list. Other entries on this list are 'getting shot by the Garrison' and 'tripping over small inconvenient puddles in the middle of a cave that had lion carvings'.

Despite writing quite a lot of negative things in the notebook, he had a feeling the, because if the notebook, things were going to turn out better.

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering if he should steal a different coloured notebook this time, because there was a very important not that he needed to add in the 'DO NOT DO' list.

'Do not distract Lance while he's driving Blue. He was a bad enough driver as it was.'

Dying while being so close to the end yet so far.

* * *

 **A.N. Okay, so it's not Lance like I promised, but I've been going through some writers block this week, so instead have a chapter that I didn't know was so short until I started to edit it. Sorry about that. Another point, I am looking for a beta reader, as I have realised that I make lots of mistakes in my writing, so, if you're interested, just PM me or leave a comment below!**


	7. Arc 1: Reaction - Hunk 2

**TRIGGER WARNING: OVERUSE OF BRACKETS**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Hunk 2

* * *

 _Opening his eyes, Hunk was greeted to the view of the desert._

 _The sky above him was a brilliant blue, bright and vibrant, almost as if somebody had put the saturation up to 100%, shining down onto the fine sand and smooth rocks below with the biggest smile in the world, happy with the view it was getting. Not a single white, fluffy cloud littered it, so nothing was able to obscure the vibrant feeling it sent the barren ground below it. There wasn't even a sun to shine down onto the Yellow Paladin, as if the mere idea of a flaming ball of gas would corrupt the perfectness that was the brilliant blue sky._

 _Below it laid the desert, in which Hunk was an ant when compared to it's vastness, as it reached to grasp the area that laid beyond the horizon. Between there and Hunk, what seemed to be miles away, laid mountains of sandstone, red and orange and yellow in colour. They stood sturdy and strong, stubbornly raised tall and mighty against the fast whipping wind that battled against the pillars of strength._

 _The wind, while strong enough to battle down the stone that had stood strong for years, only felt soft and comforting in Hunk's hair, as if a mother smoothing down their child's hair, and left behind small peppered kisses over his cheeks, as if silently supporting him in his endeavors. What should have been boiling temperatures, like back at the Garrison with the thick and scratchy uniforms, was more of a second skin, as if the desert itself was giving him a hug. The sand underneath his feet was almost like an inedible yellow sherbet, and, impossibly, none of it had yet to enter his shoes, or any of his clothing, his human clothing, the ones that he left Earth wearing._

 _Hunk couldn't help but to feel right at home here._

 _It was ridiculous, really, as there didn't seem to be anyone else here. It looked nothing like the busy New York City where he was brought nor like the small islands where is parents lived before immigrating. There were no buildings like he was used to, no cars or roads for people to travel on._

 _There was nothing here but the sky, the sand, and the silence…_

 _(He was beginning to hate the silence.)_

 _(What a stupid dream.)_

 _He takes one step unconsciously, then another, and another, until he's walking straight ahead with no destination in mind, just letting his feet step into the soft but thin layer of sand that covered the rocky ground beneath. Staring at each foot as it presses into the sherbet, his ears straining for the sound of his footsteps into the floor as a frown appears on his face, and only grows deeper by the minute._

 _There's no sound to be heard._

 _(It was like all the sound waves had been sucked out of the air, leaving him all alone.)_

 _It made him wish for someone else to be there with him, to help fill the silence. He could rant to Lance about awesome the technology was on the Castle-ship, listen to Pidge as she went on about the different software that aliens had and how it tops the ones that Earth had by lightyears. Hunk could argue with Coran about what was actually edible on the ship, could exchange stories about their home planets with Allura. He wouldn't know what Keith would talk about, but he was sure he could make a conversation... about knives?_

 _He'll even take Shiro and listen to one of his speeches about teamwork._

 _But since none of them where there to fill the silence, he'll just keep walking._

 _And walking._

 _And walking._

 _And walking._

 _And walk- Hang on a moment._

 _Hunk's eyes widened as he stared out form his place on the cliff's edge, his breath coming out in short puffs. He hands franticly reached behind him to catch onto the wall, feeling the rough edges from the years of weathering on it, until his one of his hands were able to grab onto a curve into the rock. Below him was the desert, as empty as the Garrison halls at night (and he would know what they looked like due to the amount of times Lance dragged along on an 'adventure' to town), and above is the overly saturated blue sky._

 _He could have sworn that he was on the desert floor a moment, and he was pretty sure he would have remembered climbing up a cliff to this height._

 _But, then again, this wasn't real, was it?_

 _(Stupid dreams with their stupid physics and their stupid teleporting abilities.)_

 _Turning to face the cliff wall, Hunk held a breath as he stared down a mouth of a cave, the wind leaving it at a steady speed, pushing his hair back form his face. He could see for about two meters into the cave until no more light entered it, leaving it darker than the Yellow Lion in it's current state._

 _And, despite the darkness that could hide anything and everything from him, it calls him to look inside, to come in deeper, to see the secrets that lurks in the shadows._

 _He almost doesn't go in, either. He almost turns away from the cave, willing to leave it alone and is almost ready to wake up in a broken Yellow and is almost ready to face the darkness and silence of the real world._

 _But then he hears it._

" _Black."_

 _It's quiet, but unmistakably Shiro's voice, and it was coming from the cave._

 _(In hindsight, he should have just remembered that it was all a dream.)_

 _(A stupid dream with its stupid physics and its stupid teleporting abilities and its stupid voice that was pretending to be Shiro.)_

* * *

 _Unsurprisingly, the cave is dark, which made Hunk feel less of an idiot shuffling forward with his hands in front of him to make sure he didn't bump into any walls, or to catch him if (when) he fell._

 _This had to be one of his worst ideas._

 _Not the worst he's ever played out mind. Lance once decided that t would be a great idea to try to steal Iverson's eyepatch (the man even wears it to sleep!), but, unsurprisingly, it didn't go to plan. They were very lucky that, at the same time, somebody set off lots of smoke bombs near Iverson's quarters, meaning that they were able to make a quick getaway._

 _It really wasn't quick enough in Hunk's opinion._

 _(Lance, however, was more concerned about who actually set off the smoke bombs in the first place, and why on Earth they decided to do it in Iverson's quarters instead of the student ones, and Hunk was about 87% sure that he was the one who started the rumour that Keith was the one to set them off, apparently wanting to gas Iverson in his sleep.)_

 _(At the time, Hunk wanted to say that it was the most ridiculous rumour that floated around the Garrison. However, after meeting Keith, he was no longer so sure about it.)_

 _Another shuffle forward brought Hunk to one of those dangly rock things that came down from the celling that nobody but geologists actually knew the name of. Moving himself around it, he continued to shuffle forward, his arms waving around ridiculously, until his foot came across a small rock that sent him hurling towards the floor, making him squeeze his eyes shut (despite the fact that he was in the dark), as if him not seeing it coming would make it stop, or at least be less of a surprise when he hit the stone-cold floor._

 _So, you could imagine Hunk's surprise when he didn't hit the stone-cold floor of the dark and gloomy cave, or any stone-cold floor at all._

 _No, instead of what should have been the darkness from the cave, or the brightness that came with the desert, Hunk was surrounded by the depths of space, except, in these depths, he could see the stars that were twinkling away, ready to invite him on a teddy bear picnic or something._

 _It seems that his dreams have made him teleport again, except, this time, somewhere that was far, far, far away from the desert._

 _(Stupid dreams with their stupid physics and their stupid voices that was pretending to be Shiro and their stupid, stupid teleporting abilities.)_

 _It was still a dream though, because Hunk was about 99.9% sure that you could survive in space without a spacesuit, or at least some form of oxygen supply because, hello vacuum-due-to-the-large-gaps-between-atoms-in-a-very-large-space-and-thus-could-rip-you-apart-in-a-matter-of-microseconds._

 _(Honestly, why Hunk thought it was a good idea to join the Garrison was beyond him really, and he couldn't for the life of him remember how he managed to convince himself to join.)_

 _(But at least now he was helping people now.)_

 _In any case, the depths of space in his dream did look very pretty, with all the twinkling stars, and felt much more personal than just looking out of the Castle-ship or even looking out of the Yellow Lion._

" _Is everything okay, Black?"_

 _Hunk's eyes widened at hearing Shiro's voice, pivoting his entire body to look behind and only to lose his breath at the sight of the Black Lion, standing tall and proud in front of him with a backdrop of twinkling stars._

 _There was a reason why the Black Lion was the head of Voltron after all._

 _He took a step closer, frowning at the lack of blue lights that was present in all the Lions, and the way that her eyes didn't glow as they should when a Lion was online._

 _Was she offline too? Were all the Lions offline?_

" _So, um, I take it that something's wrong then." Shiro's voice again, but where was he? He was obviously talking the Black Lion, that much Hunk could be certain about, although, he couldn't help but smile at the awkwardness that lingered in Shiro's voice, who wasn't used to having conversations with the Black Lion in the same way that he, Lance and Pidge were with their Lions._

 _(Keith barely talked to them as a team, let alone his Lion.)_

 _Maybe he was round the back of the Lion?_

 _(Why would he be round the back?)_

 _(Maybe he wasn't there at all and his stupid dream was messing with him again.)_

 _(Stupid dreams with their stupid physics and their stupid, stupid teleporting abilities and their stupid bloody voices that was pretending to be Shiro and making it out that he really was there when he obviously wasn't.)_

 _Stepping forward, Hunk slowly made his way towards the back of the Lion, making sure to look behind himself to make sure that Shiro didn't decide to scare him or something. The stars in the distance stayed at the distance they originally were at, making Hunk wonder if it was even possible to even reach then._

 _(Then again, they were probably light years away, and in a dream.)_

 _(Or maybe they were a painted back drop that he could one-day reach.)_

" _Could you open up, please?" Hunk was at the tail of the Lion at this point, and by the wording of it, Shiro was near the opening of the Black Lion. Or, he should have been, because by the time Hunk got there, Shiro had disappeared again._

 _Or maybe he wasn't there in the first place, because, y'know, dreams did seem to be very fickle things._

" _Okay, this isn't funny anymore Black. Where's Shiro?" He asked, standing at the side of the Black Lion, staring off into 'space', or whatever it was really called, since it wasn't space, with the twinkling stars yearning him to come closer to see their pretty sparkles and feel the dangerous heat that they constantly produce._

" _Hunk?" Shiro had spoken again, obviously, seeing that he was there._

 _But Hunk had yet to see Shiro._

" _Shiro? Where are you, bro?" No later did the words leave his lips before he got the feeling of an icy bucket of water socked him from his head to his toes, and incredibly cold feeling of fear and dread rooting him to his spot._

 _And, just like that, the Yellow Paladin left._

* * *

Gasping awake, Hunk almost threw himself forward and off the chair he slept in with the force that he woke himself up with, his eyes slowly adjusting to the low light emitted from his flight suit, lighting immediate area in the cockpit.

"Hey, Yellow," Hunk whispered, despite the fact that nobody was around to hear them. "I had the weirdest dream. The Black Lion was in it, and I think Shiro was too, or his voice was at least…"

* * *

 **A.N. Just so you guys know, I did not intent in any way, shape or form to release Hunk's chapter the same day as his birthday, it was a coincidence that I am forever going to be taking pride for. Happy birthday Hunk!**

 **Thank** **s to** **Fir3danc3r** f **or looking over this chapter. Next week is definitely Lance's chapter, which has already been written, so keep an eye out for that!**


	8. Arc 1: Reaction - Lance 1

**TRIGGER WARNING: NONE THAT I CAN SEE?**

* * *

Arc One: Reaction - Lance 1

* * *

Yawning widely, Lance stretched his arms above his head, his senses slowly but surely returning to him. First came the overwhelming relief that he wasn't in any sort of pain, strange since he was pretty sure he crashed Blue because of the god damn wormhole throwing them around willy nilly, making him wonder if everyone else was alright in their own Lions. Next was the smell of eye watering disinfectant that reminded him to much of a hospital, or the castle-ship's infirmary, as well as a faint mortar oil undertone that was always surrounded Hunk, Pidge, and their corresponding Lion's hangers. The small, idle chatter of students as they walked pass the corridor on the other side of the door provided a low background noise that he wasn't used to in the castle-ship, where he had his headphones and some quiet ocean noises to help him sleep.

Wait.

Quickly sitting up on the bed, Lance looked around the empty dorm, staring at the dorm's door and at the clock that hung above it, the second hand trying to move forward only to move back to its original position. The other hands were stuck in the position of 11:43, an impossible time judging by the sunrise that was breaking through the window, looking ever beautiful over the dry and barren Arizonian desert, meaning that the clock was still low on batteries, even though he could have sworn he put in new one's just days before he left the Garrison on a self-imposed mission to save the universe.

But, that was in his dream then, because he hadn't left the Garrison to become a Paladin of Voltron. None of that happened. Keith hadn't left the Garrison, Shiro wasn't alive (now that was a sad thought), and he probably made Pidge up, let alone Allura, Coran and all the other aliens, Galra or otherwise, they had met on their way.

And to think that his dream self thought that his best friend was a good match with a rock alien.

Oh, he couldn't wait to tell Hunk about the weirdest dream he's ever had.

Standing up, Lance yawned again as he arched his back, frowning when it didn't crack like it normally did. Huffing quietly, Lance went to grab his phone off from the top of the bedside table, the sudden desire to call Mama and just hearing her voice hitting him with full force now that the dream was over, only to pause when he realised it was missing. Frowning, he looked back onto his bed, the covers all nicely done up and pillows perfectly puffed, as if nobody had slept in it the night before, clenching his jaw when he saw that his phone was still not there.

And, thus, the manic man hunt to find his phone began.

It began with him looking under the table again, then to underneath the bed and down the sides to make sure it didn't fall down there. When that came up empty, it was over to the dull desk, void of any paperwork he may have left behind the night before, with it's even duller but matching chair, just in case he decided to talk to his brother while 'studying', the to the windowsill, because maybe he wanted to snap a picture of the view and send it to his sisters. But, the more he looked for the device, the more frantic he grew as the more unlikely it became to find it, mainly because he was coming up with less ideas with where he could have left it.

Where on Earth could he hav-

"I told you James, nobody sleeps in this room!" Turning quickly, Lance watched as the door of his room opened to a girl pulling a guy into the room giggling in an almost flirty way, pushing the guy onto the bed and straddling him. The guy looked a little shocked of what had just happened, but smiled nonetheless, holding his hands at her hips and steading her.

"Excuse me, but I have you know that I sleep in this very room!" Lance stated very loudly from where he was standing at the windowsill, his phone still very much missing, only for his eyes to widen when the couple completely blanked him out to start making out with one another, getting heavily invested in what the other had to offer.

"But what about the ghost?" The boy pulled away from the kiss, if you could call it that, his hands travelling lower than Lance would like, a playful smile dancing on his lips.

"Ghost?" Both the girl and Lance stated at the same time, giving it an echoed feel to it, and chilling Lance to the bone, his anger forgotten for a second.

Lance didn't like the way this was going.

"Oh yeah, they say that, years ago, a student was murdered in this very room-"

"No no no no, that's it, time for you to get out and have your creepy pasta foreplay somewhere else!" Lance exclaimed, his anger back twice-fold, walking forward to pull the lovesick couple away from his bed, only have his breath stuck in his throat as he watched his hands go straight through the couple, leaving behind a cold pins and needles sensation that travelled up his whole arm, then down his spine to his legs, causing him to shudder.

"-years ago. After his death, the Garrison made the room unavailable, to make sure that the kid's ghost wouldn't tell anyone who murdered him." It was said in a hushed whisper, but, to Lance, who was standing behind the girl with his back to the open door, the guy could have been shouting at him.

"So, do you know who murdered him then?"

Lance left before he could get an answer to the comment, leaving the couple with the ghostly foreplay that was going to haunt Lance for the rest of his life.

He needed answers of a different kind.

* * *

The corridors of the Galaxy Garrison were almost nostalgic for Lance, though, he could have sworn that he had been walking down them yesterday, laughing loudly with his friend over how stupid Keith's mullet looked, however, it became less nostalgic when he tripped through a person, causing him to fall to the ground with tremors that lasted at least two minutes before stopping, leaving him to one side of the corridor while students and teachers alike walk past with no sign of them acknowledging him on the floor, even when he started to talk loudly in English, then Spanish, which then progressed onto shouting and screaming at them in hopes to catch them off guard. When he found that that didn't work, he just got up, and started to wonder again, his voice burning from the vocal exercise he had just given it.

The forced isolation gave Lance quite a bit of time to think about his situation.

Because, as he thought about it more, the more he realised that, because that weird dream was oddly realistic to the point that he remembered the pain of being too close to an explosion, feeling the way that the shrapnel ripped into his body and the way that his muscles screamed at him when he shot Sendax and the way that his head span while resting of Keith's shoulder. He remembered to joy of saving the Balmura from the Galra, the feeling of victory light on their shoulders while the adrenaline rush from the battle wearing off. He remembered the tight bond that being a Paladin of Voltron created, from the sharing of memories from the mind meld to the utter joy that the food fight created in their second day of space, so far from any of them were comfortable with.

There was no way he could have made any of that up. Not with the way that Keith glowered at him when successfully rifled up, not with the way that Pidge and Hunk went all starry eyed over any new technology they found and the different ways they tinkered with their lions. And there was no way that Lance would be able to make up the stuff that Shiro came out with, from the sound battle plans to the gunshot noises.

Lance suddenly paused his walk, turning his head to look down the corridor where he, as well as Hunk met Pidge for the first time. The wall still held the information boards for all the classes, sorted by a leader board that was updated every week or so, as well as extra curriculum, but, as Lance stepped forward to inspect it closer, he noticed that his year group, well, the year group he remembered being in, had yet to be put up there.

Or, it had been so long, considering the possibility of him being a ghost now, unlikely but possible, that their top scores, well, Keith's at least, had long been knocked off and- oh.

 _Takashi Shirogane (2040-Current) – 3,819 Single, 313,423 Collective – Fighter Class_

Lance held his breath as his mind raced one hundred miles a minute, trying to process what was going on. Shiro was still listed as alive for one thing, something that had changed a day after the 'failed' Kerberos mission, and even then, Lance could have sworn that Keith had beaten this score by a mile in his second or third time in the simulator.

Wait, so, what was the date, because he seemed to be in a time when Earth considered Shiro to be alive (unless there was another Takashi Shirogane who was born in the same year as his Shiro as well as be employed by the Galaxy Garrison and held the exact score as the other Shiro, a situation that was more unlikely than him being a ghost) unless he didn't go to Kerberos this time, but that again wouldn't make sense, but, hey, he was just the lowly Blue Paladin, he didn't know astrophysics of wormholes and other technology from aliens and the repercussions of travelling through them when they were corrupted and thus having unforeseeable repercussions.

He really wanted to bang his head against a wall, but he doubted it would made the satisfying thud that he needed right now.

Where was Keith when he needed him? He was the only Paladin that knew about ghosts, as evident by the _long_ discussion given by the Red Paladin about the 'haunted' experience the residents of the Castle-Ship got while trying to relax after the Balmura mission.

"-Of course, it wouldn't work. The idea of there being a nacho planet in this universe is ludicrous man, I'm telling you!"

Lance turned around to watch as Hunk walked passed, deep in conversation with a classmate, Parker, was it? He couldn't remember, but the chilly feeling in his chest since hearing the ghost conversation raised just that little bit.

"So, you're saying that there's a higher chance of there being a nacho planet being in a universe?" A smile danced across his best friend's lips, and Lance couldn't help but to follow after the pair of boys as they made their way to god know where, but the little bit of hope that Lance had gained since seeing Hunk's face made him break out a smile, despite the fact that nobody could see it.

And, as he trailed behind the boys, he started to reply loudly to some of the things that the boys spoke about, listening to the way that his voice would echo but in a way that nobody could hear.

* * *

 **A.N. - So this is late, I'm very sorry about that, but an illness hit me like a bus and ran me over. Next week is Hunk, again. Hope you enjoyed this week's chapter!**


	9. Arc 1: Reaction - Keith 3

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, SOME BLOOD.**

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Arc One: Reaction - Keith 3

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Unceremoniously, Keith laid on his bed in the castleship, overcome with a nauseous excitement, his stomach filled with fluttering butterflies.

Ugh.

Sighing, he sat up on his bed and opened up his bag, taking out his knife and his notebook (not a journal, and most defiantly not a diary), the only objects of note in his bag. His fingered the peeling cover of the B5 book, a red hardback this time, wondering if he should try to memorise it a bit more. Sure, he had had the eight month previous to memorise everything, but, up until now, he had died before he had even reached this point, the beginning of being a Paladin of Voltron.

It had taken him eight deaths to get this far.

Meaning it had taken him 46 months, almost 4 years (not that he was counting), to form Voltron once more, to bond again with his fellow Paladins.

Despite only knowing them for a maximum of a month – a lonesome year in the case of Shiro – the long lonely months that stretched into years in the desert left him aching for the deep level connection from the other humans on the castleship. But, at the same time, they were not the same people who entered the corrupted wormhole with him. Hunk was still fearful and still suffered with terrible motion sickness; Lance had yet to notice his homesickness, blind to how long they were going to be out here fighting the war. Shiro had yet to come to terms with the fact that he no longer had to fight and kill for the enjoyment of others, the Red Paladin doubted they were sleeping due to the new environment, and Pidge, well, everyone still thought Pidge was a boy and she (they, maybe?), still wanted to find their brother and father to the point of leaving Voltron, preparing an escape pod to abandon them during the party.

The party.

The party that Sendak used as a distraction to attack the castle's power source, hurting Lance in the process (the self-sacrificing idiot that he was) and trying to take the castle back to Zarkon. Where was he during all of this? Outside the castle, haven been tricked to leave and unable to help Shiro, Lance and Pidge due to the stupid particle barrier.

Keith chucked the book back onto his bed and stood up, starting to pace around the room, his thoughts filling him with an anxious energy, leaving his limbs jittery and giving him a craving to _do something._ He couldn't go to the training deck, because explaining not only how he found the room and recognised it for what it was but also knowing how to control it and any other question that Shiro may come up with would mean having to tell everyone how he works hard to get to that point in time and beyond, only to die, wake up on his birthday and restart the whole process.

No, he can live without that thank you very much.

So, instead of slashing some Altean dummies with his Bayard like he wants to, he does the next best thing, which just so happened to be slashing the air with his knife, the same thing that he had been doing in the long months that stretched into years in the desert on a daily basis.

And if he never really goes to bed that night, contempt with making sure that the air in front of him could feel the pent up energy, well, what did it matter anyway?

It's not like he had anything of importance planned.

* * *

He nicked his arm with his knife, almost stabbed himself, when the alarm sounded and Allura's voice, filled the halls of the catleship. By the time he had put on his jacket and started running down the white halls, Coran had taken over, spewing some over exaggerated nonsense about how Allura was dying, reminding him that this was a drill, not an attack on the castle. Keith shook his head as he pasted the different rooms that the castleship contain, careful not to let a small nostalgic smile fill his face.

He had missed this.

Something he had not missed, however, was Allura yelling at them for taking too long, for not being armed (which he was, not that he would tell people) and not wearing their amour. The first time round, he was still foggy with sleep, but slightly annoyed at her because ' _they were still here, weren't they'._ Now, though, he was angry. Angry because the others were still new to this. Angry because the others still didn't know the caslteship's layout, let alone know what to do when the alarm goes off. Angry because they had yet to process the fact that they were in space, the furthest humanity has ever gone, and were probably never going to see their planet again (not that Keith cared, because all he had to go back to was the lonely shack in the middle of the desert), and were going to die because of this war against the Galra (again and again and again).

He wanted to snap at her, tell her all of that and more, but he didn't trust himself to do it, because if he started, he doubted that he would stop, going on to tell her, to tell the entire team all that had angered him in the past four years, in the past 46 months, explain that every time he got Shiro back he lost him, tell them that he was sick and tired of the last eight months playing on repeat and he was sick of the desert, sick of the dry heat that it produced and the sand that littered the place and sick of the sunburn it would always give him and just plain done with the stupid caves that hid all the secrets of the blue lion and dying and waking up and dying, only to wake up again, only to die of some stupid mistake.

He was tired of dying over and over.

He was tired of waking up again straight after.

He was tired of it all.

He really should have gone to bed last night.

And, now, time to suit up and form Voltron.

* * *

Armor, then zip line, then speeder, then lion.

He's done it so many times in the past (will do it so many times in the future) that he could do this in his sleep. His arm had twitched when he suited up, making him glad that he had put his jacket, for there was not any doubt in his mind that Shiro would chew him out over it, something he used to do when they were both on Earth, in the Garrison, and Keith would train his frustrations out of his systems, only for Shiro to stop him half way through, telling him that it was better, heathier, to talk your way through your problems and worries rather than to hit them, or anything else.

Well, that was before the Galra, because there have been times (previously, in another lifetime) when Keith saw his brother figure hit something in a blind panic.

The Shiro he knew, the one before the Galra took him away from him, would have never done that.

"Alright, guys. Let's just fly in tight formation until we're totally in sync." Shiro's voice echoed through the comm, and Keith allowed a smile to grace his face because, yes, he remembered this, he remembered his first day of training as a Paladin of Voltron. But then it quickly fell off his face because, today went (is going to be) horrible.

Allura had said something about the bonds of the lions and to feel them, but Keith didn't pay any attention to it because he knew, from not only the past (future?) but from the weak bond with the Red Lion (not his, it's not the same as before, not as deep as before) and the non-existent bond with his (but not the same) teammates, that this was not going to work. Half of the team had met the day before, and Keith was still not used to the fact that they were not the same before as before, not the people he had grown to trust and rely on to have his back.

He knew, from experience, that it was going to take more than flying in formation to create Voltron.

After the first time, he doesn't even bother to show his fake enthusiasm, and instead, focus on flying his lion in the long loopy circles that Shiro was leading them through.

He's missed this, the flying.

It was the only thing that made him regret getting booted out of the Garrison, the simulations were fun and he got the thrill of being in the air. Sure, not many people liked to work with his due to the lack of communication, and the risky decisions he would make, but he was good at what he did, and so the Garrison put up with his attitude, if only to use his talent. Keith was fine with it, he got to fly.

But then Shiro disappeared.

At first, they put up with his downhill behaviour, his downhill grades. He got in a fight with a cadet, they let him off. He was talented, he was going to be the future of the Galaxy Garrison, this is just a phase.

Then he helped Katie Holt break into Iverson's office.

They were never close, him and Katie. They both knew each other due to Shiro and the Holts being on the same team, and they had dinner together, once or twice, but never anything more. Something they both had in common, however, was that they believed that the team was not dead.

So, it turns out that using smoke bombs to break into a commander's office and hack his computer to find out about a failed mission is where they drew the line. They both got warnings, punishments, lies about Shiro, about the Holts, and got told to buckle down, or else.

Katie broke into the office again, alone this time, without his help, so she was kicked out of the program.

(He was quite proud of her.)

It was Lieutenant Browning, Iverson's right hand man, who said he had helped her again. He didn't, but they didn't believe him, because they thought it was impossible for a 13 year old girl to do it all by herself. So they started yelling at him, and he yelled just as much, then they mentioned something about Shiro. He may have punched him, it was a bit of a blur, but by the end of the day, he too was kicked out of the Garrison, for disciplinary issues.

He sometimes wished he didn't, sometimes it was because he wanted to see Katie Holt become Pidge Gunderson and trick all of the officers there (she looks exactly like her brother for god's sake), but most of the time, it was flying.

Nothing was better than flying in Red. She purred in response, agreeing in her own way that this was one of the best things in the world. He smiled, but then he was overcome with a thought.

 _This didn't happen last time._

He didn't have the closest bond with his lion the first time around, he knew that. Lance and Blue had the strongest bond, he would say, but, at times, Lance had doubts which blocked the lion's bond. Shiro trusted his lion the most out of all of them, but personally kept Black out of arms reach, and there seemed to be something wrong on the lion's side too, something that made her less willing to bond than the other lions. Hunk was unaware of Yellow trying to support him in the same way that he supported the team, and Pidge was, at times, worse than him when it came to interactions with other beings, and while she did all these fancy upgrades for the Green, she sometimes forgot that the lion was sentient. Keith wondered about what stopped him from bonding with Red before, because now she was purring at him within a day and the only other person that happened with was Lance when they first met Blue because they were messing about-

They were bonding over what they both enjoyed. He and Red, just like Lance and Blue, loved to fly.

He made a mental note to take Red on more flights that didn't involve life-or-death situations. She purred loudly in response, agreeing with him.

"Whoo. Am I the only one who's still pretending to be excited?" Keith found it hard to keep a smile off his face. He wasn't excited per say, but he was glad that the bond with Red had grown, even if it didn't help to make Voltron now. Maybe later, after the day was over, he'll tell her about the past four years. Now though:

"Maybe we should be building Voltron from the ground up." Keith barely succeeded in suppression a yawn, and was glad that they didn't have the cameras on, just the comms. He knew this wouldn't work, but it was worth reliving the good times.

* * *

Somehow, the day got progressively better and worse at the same time.

It got better in the sense that his bond with Red had strengthen two-fold, and now was almost as good as the first time around. Even tired he could still appreciate her speed and the way that she quickly dodged the shots from the castle, until, of course the particle barrier went down and they just decide to give up trying to form Voltron then and there, thinking that maybe next time it would work.

It got worse in the sense that Coran showed them to the training deck.

First of all, the droids. Pidge and Hunk were quick to leave, being completely inexperienced in combat situations (his Pidge and his Hunk weren't), leaving just Shiro, Lance and himself, and that in its self didn't last every long, for Keith had put too much trust in himself to keep up with others in his sleep deprived manner, and too little trust in Lance to watch his back, causing him to not protect Shiro. Lance then went on to distract him (why did he need to make everything a competition, and why did he think that they were rivals?), causing him to lose focus and then the both of them were out.

He didn't even want to talk about what went wrong about the invisible maze, for the only thing that went right with it was that they stopped.

Now, they were onto the trust fall.

Red was purring in his ear when they started flying again; it was enough to make him turn his yawn into a smile. Sure, he didn't succeed in the trust fall last time, mainly due to the fact that his bond with Red wasn't as good as it was now or what it would become, that and he was more focused in beating Lance. This time, however, Keith was sure that they could do this. Last time, Shiro was the only one to do it because he trusted Black, right? Well, he trusted his lion with his life, she had saved his life in more than one occasion. Sure, this wasn't the same Red, but they were the same person, same sentient robotic lion with a temper worse than his (he felt a growl at that one, causing a grin to fill his face), so he trusted her.

He heard the others exclaim and being to protest loudly when Coran activated their training helmets, covering their eyes in a dark blanket of nothingness. It was soothing, almost relieving a headache that Keith didn't know he had. He tuned the others out as they started their decline, ignoring Hunk's panic voice and Lance egging him on with some competition he made up on the fly, and leaned back onto his chair, hands loosely gripping at the controls. This was okay, he trusted Red, he was sure he could 'look through he eyes' or whatever Coran said to do. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. ' _Patience yields focus'._ He had to wait, anyhow, for they were pretty high up, and he was only closing his eyes, anyhow, not like he was going to fall asleep, right?

* * *

Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.

Ugh.

Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering how the fuck he had died. He had only just closed his eyes…

Had he fallen asleep while flying Red?

Fuck.

Well, that makes it nine deaths now, doesn't it?

* * *

 **A.N. - Sorry I didn't update last week, nor give you Hunk, but I've been struggling with him lately, so today it's going to be Keith and tomorrow will be Pidge, as well as the last chapter for this arc. More on that tomorrow!**


	10. Arc 1: Reaction - Pidge 2

**TRIGGER WARNINGS: SWEARING**

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Arc One: Reaction - Pidge 2

* * *

Katie could not have been happier to have her birthday on a Friday.

She dazed through the rest of the day, attending her afternoon lessons, but she wasn't fully there, as one moment she was eating the rather crappy lunch that the Garrison call food (though it seems rather bland and tasteless that evening, which was strange because, even if it was crappy, it usually had a strong crappy taste to go with it, but that afternoon it was almost like eating water, as she knew it was physically eating something, it just didn't have a taste to it) and the next moment she's in her dorm, sitting at her messy, paper filled desk, looking out into the dreary desert with absolutely no recollection of how she got there.

Looking at the darkening sky, she noted the deep red sun setting behind the yellow cliffs where, in her dream (her stupid dream), an alien robotic Lion laid resting until her chosen Paladin came and woke her up like some sort of sleeping beauty.

(It truly had been a stupid dream.)

The last thing she remembered was her lunch, meaning that she had lost almost five hours of her day. It was disorientating, as it was as if her soul had jumped into the future, giving her no time at all to process the fact that she had jumped forward in time.

And that, my friends, is when you should be starting to get concerned.

Katie (Pidge) Holt, however, just chalked it up to her lack of a proper sleeping schedule, and moved on with her life without a thought.

(She'll regret it later, just you watch…)

Huffing, she opened up her battered laptop (ah, the places they've been together, the sites they've hacked and the memes they've made) and clicked onto her social media, going through all the 'Happy Birthday' comments and automatically liking them, even the paragraph that her mum put up about how her 'baby's getting so old', not bothering to read any of it or take a note of any of the pictures her old school friends or her father had posted to mark the occasion. She had almost finished liking all the posts, making it out to be a chore (which it totally was), when a small, pale blue notification popped up in the right hand corner of the screen, distracting her from the gibberish that littered her screen.

She smiled brightly and clicked on it without hesitation, her eyes almost signing when the face of her older brother, Matt Holt, filled the screen, hiding the messages that congratulated her on surviving another year, something that she'll probably click off anyway when she had finished the call to her brother.

It had become part of her weekly routine, waiting for a call from Matt every Friday evening, one of the only evening's that Matt got off from the Galaxy Garrison's research department, not that he would have it any way. He had tried space, and had told her that it just wasn't for him the same way that it was for their father. The pilot for the mission, however, had agreed with Matt, so she had decided that they would become a test pilot instead for the engineers, meaning that, while she did fly the fast ships that could break at a moment's notice, she wouldn't have to leave Earth's atmosphere ever again.

(Pidge's mind went blank and she, she had forgotten the name of the pilot…)

(…She searched her mind for a proper answer, getting frustrated as she racked her brain for the answer…)

(Her name was…)

(Something was wrong, why had she forgotten something this important?)

(Her name was…)

(His name was Shiro. Shirogane Tadashi. Matt Holt's best friend.)

(Suddenly Pidge could breathe again)

(Something was wrong here.)

"So how has the best little sister been on her birthday?" Matt smiled, blind to the mental struggle she just went through. Nevertheless, Katie smiled back at her laptop screen, confirming that, yes, she had had a decent day despite having to have lessons on it, and, yes, she did like the look of the new graphics card that he sent to her to upgrade her laptop. She pushed the fact that she didn't remember what she did for half of the day or the fact that she forgot the name of her brother's best friend or the really, really weird dream she had that stayed in the background of everything she did.

There were some things that she didn't want to talk about to her older brother who happened to be the biggest weeb she had ever had the misfortune of meeting.

(And she loved him to the bottom of her heart because of it.)

(Enough to travel across the universe in a weird space robot cat if she ever needed to.)

(It really was a weird dream.)

From there, the conversation grew onto how their week had been, talking about the amount of homework and late nights they had, complaining about their teachers and their COs. It's almost familiar, their conversation, as if their had already had it before, in a different lifetime or alternate universe, maybe. It wasn't until Matt's phone buzzed somewhere off camera, however, that a sense of dread slithered down her spine, settling in the pits of her stomach, resting there twitching, reminding her that it was there, that it wasn't moving and that she would not be able to get it off her mind.

Katie watch curiously as Matt picked up the phone, reading what she presumed to be a message, frowning as he started blushing and quickly started to text back with a dopy looking smile on his face.

She got the feeling that this was not going to end well in any way shape or form.

But, it did make for some great teasing, and maybe blackmail, material.

"So, who you texting?" She asked, adding a small smirk to her face, watching in utter delight as his face went red as all the blood rushed to the surface in embarrassment, causing Katie's eyebrows to crease, because he's never done that before.

Has he met someone?

"Lauran. She was asking about when the new prototype would be safe enough to fly, and what sort of boosters it's going to have." He replied, not even looking up from his phone as he started to type with a speed only those who grew up with the technology could have. Katie, however, was left confused.

Who the fuck was Lauran?

"Who the fuck is Lauran?" She huffed leaning her head on her fist, a small smile crawling onto her face at the though of her older brother _finally_ losing his virginity.

"Lauran? Lauran Harris? You know, the pilot of the Kerberos mission?"

Pidge's insides froze at the words, staring unblinking at the wall behind her while her brother went on about the story where she apparently met her for the first time almost a year before the mission.

A story that she has no recollection of, because, as far as she could remember, _Shiro_ had been the one who Matt and Dad brought home one evening, saying very loudly that he would be the reason that they didn't make it back for dinner. _Shiro_ had been the one who brought Keith 'no-middle-name' Kogane along and that was how the two of them met. _Shiro_ had been the one to pilot the ship for the Kerberos mission, _Shiro_ had been the one to save her brother from the Galran gladiator rings, _Shiro_ had been-

Shiro had only been in Katie's dreams, it seemed.

But the big question was, who the fuck was he, because there was no way that she had just made him up in her very elaborate dreams of aliens and spaceships.

(Another big question was who the quiznaking fuck Coran and Allura were, as well as every single alien they came across as their time as Paladins of Voltron, but, quiet honestly, maybe just answering the questions on Earth maybe better suited for now.)

"Of course, _that_ Lauran." Katie muttered, interrupting Matt's monologue. "Has she taken your virginity yet?" She asked innocently, fluttering her eyelashes and giving the most unknowing smile she could give, her eyes twinkling at her brothers spluttering on the other side of the camera, in a bedroom on the other side of the country.

(Once that seemed a far distance for Pidge, but after space, or at least, her dream about space, she had never felt more closer to her brother.)

It didn't take long for him to hang up the call, only to get away from her merciless teasing.

Katie sighed as she hit her head against the table, the laptop sitting open in front of her, back to the webpage of the social media with the birthday messages still open, frowning at one of the messages that was on the top of her screen.

 _Happy Birthday Katie! I hope you had a nice day. See you when you come back home – Lauran Haines._

Sitting up quickly, she opened a new tab, and Binged Lauran's name, and was surprised to not only find herself confused when a picture of the launch day for the Kerberos mission appeared, but shocked when a picture of herself and a woman who she had never seen before in her life appeared, with both Dad and Matt standing in between them, as well as a man who looked to be in her 50's and very proud of what was currently happening.

The woman, Katie assumed, was the Lauran Haines that Matt was smitten over.

Frowning, she did another search, putting in Shiro's name, then full name and date of birth and then his surname before his given name and only getting pictures of many different Japanese men that were definitely not her Shiro before she decided to put Kerberos behind it, only to stare at the screen when a message say that there was nothing that matched her query popped up, leaving her with so many more questions than she had answers.

Who the fuck was Shirogane Takashi, and why did she know that name?

(She'll need a nap, three cups of coffee and two cans of Monster before Pidge started to search properly, because she didn't sleep well last night (if the dream was any indication) so some proper sleep for her self-imposed mission sounded like a good call.)

* * *

 **A.N. Sorry for not updating yesterday like I said, but for some reason there was some problems with the Doc Manager? But, with that, the end of Arc One and a fifth way through what I have planned! Next week I won't be uploading, mainly so I can catch up with the schedule again during half term. Next will be either Hunk or Lance, depending on which is done first.**

 **Please comment below and tell me your thoughts!**


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